There's nothing like a movie where Alan Rickman plays a total dick. He's a genius at it. No one comes close to what I refer to as "Rickman Dickery". He's an artist. Rembrandt worked in paints and Rickman works in being an asshole. Nobel Son is no exception with the Rickman playing Eli Michaelson, a chemist who has just won the Nobel Prize, pushing his ego even further into the stratosphere. What seems like good fortune for Michaelson soon sours as his son Barkley (Bryan Greenberg) is kidnapped and held for his fathers $2 million prize. Of course Eli isn't going to hand over his money so easily, but this gets muddled by taking a simple plot and turning it into a convoluted mess. And that is the problem with Nobel Son. What was a simple plot that could have been played for great laughs, the film suddenly launches into too many sub plots: family trees, psych wards, stolen formulas, etc. The second half of the film becomes a road map to hell as you try to keep the plot straight and even after seeing it through there is no real answer to some of the more pressing questions in the film.Rickman is awesome, of course, but the rest of the cast is a little ho-hum. Sure Danny DeVito is in this, but it's mainly a cameo. Bill Pullman pulls off the role of a smarter than average cop with the same success he would have playing Princess Diana. Mary Steenburgen does give the audience one glimmer ray of hope in an otherwise dud cast. I don't know if Nobel Son tries too hard or too much, but the film collapses in its second half. This is mainly for Rickman fans. Others should steer clear.
You know that kid in high school that is obsessed with the unattainable girl that he'll never get in a million years, yet he keeps trying and somewhere in his mind he's getting close to attaining her affections, yet there is a wonderful girl in the wings ready to be his one? That's essentially what Two Lovers is about. Joaquin Phoenix plays a suicidal neighbor to Gweneth Paltrow's neighbor who is in love with a married lawyer in the firm she works for. Leonard (Phoenix) slowly develops a relationship Michelle (Paltrow) as she continues to lead a rough road that includes drugs, her disastrous relationship, and here need for Leonard as a crutch. Meanwhile Leonard is in a relationship with Vanissa (Sandra Cohen) the daughter of the man who is going to take over his fathers dry cleaning business. The relationship blossoms when Leonard realizes that he'll never have Michelle, but that all changes with a cell phone ringing.Two Lovers is predictable as hell. This thing wouldn't have been more predictable if I had written the damn thing. There are no curve balls or twists in this one- you see where its headed by the half way point. Too bad the entire thing is dull as hell. Leonard's life doesn't come of as pathetic, he's creepy. I can see that they were going for two pathetic characters getting together, but it just doesn't work because Phoenix and Paltrow have as much chemistry as oil and water. They just don't work together. Who am I kidding, the entire movie doesn't really gel. It's one big, dull mess that just drives you to screaming for the ending that we all know is coming anyway. It may sound like a marquee pair up but you may want to pass on this pathetic, cliched, sentimental film.
Confessions of a Shopaholic is yet another one of those Valentine's Day date films that bank on the holiday and not on plot, direction, or acting to get people in theaters. Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) is yet another New York gal obsessed with designer clothes and maxing her purchases of said clothes out on her many, many credit cards. Her dream is to write for a high end fashion magazine, but through a series of coincidences ends up writing an article about saving money for a financial magazine, with a hot, foreign editor (Luke Brandon). You know these two are going to get together while she attempts not to mis step into him finding out that she is drowning in debt.
Once again Hollywood gives us a film that is supposed to be a comedy, but really isn't funny. It's just a blah experience. Dull, predictable, tedious at times, Confessions is basically a low rent Sex in the City and we all know how crappy that was. There is an interesting sub plot about a debt collector that is as obsessed as Buford the Justice to get his check. Isla Fisher is once again cute beyond recognition, but the film stumbles from the poor story and the acting that surrounds her. I'm already nominating Kristen Scott Thomas for worst mis casting of the year. John Goodman is in this as the dad, but the little time he gets on screen is minimal and all we are left with is when in the hell did he start looking so old. John Lithgow is also wasted in this film. I mean really wasted. It's like buying a dozen eggs at the market and sitting on them when getting into the car. Wasted.
Yes, this is a chick flick, but it doesn't follow the formula. Sure, there's the cute city girl, but there's no real male hook for ladies to go see this one. And that's the key to a chick flick. Eye candy for the ladies.
